As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes the stage in New York, she's not only considering what humor to deliver. She also weighs which topics to avoid. “I don't engage in openly criticizing the administration,” she explained. And when she does, she makes certain it isn't captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly material in which I openly disparage authorities … I think it's a learned behavior from China.”
Wang, thirty-nine, lived in Shanghai for nearly a decade, leaving in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to talks, protests, and exploring the city's public library.
But over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there's been a noticeable shift in the environment, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Her fears mirror an emerging political reality in the US which many Chinese, or those who have lived in the country, perceive as disturbingly similar. Opponents face exclusion. The leader expects absolute loyalty. Journalists are targeted. Institutions come under fire.
Trump has openly expressed regarding his respect for China's leader, China’s authoritarian figure. He's called him as a “great guy”. When they reached a temporary truce in economic tensions on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with vastly different governance models became clear. Following years of hope in the US that improved relations with the East may help the growing nation become more open, in the current administration, it appears that the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, instead of vice versa.
“The United States is experiencing an era of societal upheaval,” said a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The president, Trump, is trying to rally the masses in order to marginalize or weaken the elite … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since the administration initiated what's termed Department for Government Efficiency, or the agency, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start of his term, many in China have viewed US politics through the lens of the Cultural Revolution. Whether it is the rallying of the youth to carry out the leader’s will, or purging organizations of perceived enemies, Trump from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered disorder reminiscent of Mao to the US, albeit absent equivalent degrees of force.
However since the turmoil of the early months under Trump subsided, a new, distinct type of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems recognizable to many Chinese people.
‘The Lighthouse Is Less Bright’
The deepest similarity between the US today and the East is the suppression on free speech.
A former police officer, turned CCP dissenter, found himself in the eye of a storm recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in his homeland. He has lived in the US since 2019, having fled the country due to harassment from the authorities.
In September, after the death of a public figure, Deng tweeted that Kirk was “despicable”. Like people across the US – many of whom were fired as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he faced allegations of espionage seeking to divide the US.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined such a thing would occur in America – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” he commented.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of social surveillance bears parallels with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil public speech about issues deemed controversial … That’s starting to emerge in the US,” noted an academic, a scholar at Georgia State University. “This is that you see in the East today as well,” she added, stating that there were now fears in the US of pupils informing against educators, a form of monitoring that has been encouraged by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself used to look to America for ideals, since openly discussing domestic politics in China is risky. However, “The US is no longer some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We used to see the US as the symbol of democratic governance, but since the new administration, that guide appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, who are often, at least in private, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but post-COVID, authorities seems to be doing the right thing in environmental protection and promoting EVs and tech investment,” he noted, while “Western nations, as represented by America, seems to be declining.”
The government's acquisition of shares in American firms has prompted parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and business is frequently unclear.
On Monday, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a new company focused on mineral refinement, following comparable shares in additional firms it considers essential for the country's safety. The deals have made some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of state intervention in the private sector.
Yet, there remain major differences between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets among others declined to agree to a defense department rule that required they only report on approved news. American judiciary have blocked or overturned numerous Trump’s actions, an action that is impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled judiciary.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into the worst crisis of all time, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than the East under its leader.”
The professor notes that while many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities yield to official requests concerning DEI policies and free speech on university grounds, in the East, the top universities are publicly controlled by default. Administrators, who are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They dare not defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are beginning to take precautions that were once associated with repressive regimes. One professor at an American college once vocal on US-China issues declined to speak for this piece. He said: “Honestly, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel less afraid to criticise Xi these days than say anything bad
